In a televised report on CNBC, market research firm NPD, reported the following preliminary numbers for the period between November 1, 2006 and December 25, 2006:

• Xbox 360: 2.0 million units
• Wii: 1.8 million units
• PS3: 750k units

Granted, this doesn’t mean that Microsoft has won the so-called “console war”, just a single battle. The Wii is certainly in the game, and as more games emerge, the PS3 still could be a contender in 2008 and beyond.

[via The Register]

At this time I wrote this article, the Xbox 360 was clearly in the lead with 7.7 Million+ consoles sold, compared to 687k+ Nintendo Wii consoles, and just 340k+ Sony Playstation 3 consoles sold to date. [UPDATE, as of 12/1, the Wii has really pulled ahead of the PS3 with over 1.1MM consoles shipped to date]

The images above should show the updated worldwide sales estimates for the big three “next gen” consoles. (IMHO, now that they’re all on the market, we should probably start calling them “current gen.”) The site claims to be regularly monitoring dozens of sources for recent sales figures. I don’t know how accurate their estimation process is, but I think the general proportions seem to be in line with what one would expect at this point.